Cry Havoc, and let loose the Dogs of Media!https://ejoselit.wordpress.com
It changes us, can we change it?Tue, 11 May 2010 06:13:08 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngCry Havoc, and let loose the Dogs of Media!https://ejoselit.wordpress.com
I’m NOT with Stupidhttps://ejoselit.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/im-not-with-stupid/
https://ejoselit.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/im-not-with-stupid/#commentsTue, 11 May 2010 06:13:08 +0000http://ejoselit.wordpress.com/?p=223]]>We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. ~Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764

People love to quote the beginning of this quote, but it is like the right to bear arms there is a qualification to free speech if you’re an ass than you’re an ass at your own peril. No one is going to stand up and defend your rights to free speech just because you make a group of assholes. If one guy walks in to a gay bar and starts telling everyone that gays are a blight on society and AIDS is god’s way of fixing the world. He’s gona get his butt kicked and he’ll deserve it and no one will think that this is a freedom of speech disaster. So why if you make a group of likeminded assholes does it become freedom of speech

The neo Nazi says how freedom won out and this is a great day for freedom, no it didn’t and no it was not. It isn’t freedom when every punk gets to antagonize people. What were they marching for? They were not using the march to spread an idea, it was a publicity stunt meant to use the outrage of innocent people to get media coverage.

When Voltaire said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” he would defend your right to express yourself and spread new ideas in their proper setting. He would not defend this, using other peoples discomfort to aggrandize your own beliefs. This is not even akin to shouting fire in a crowded theater, its pure stupidity. It truly saddens me that the cutting edge of free speech is not to enlighten the public, but to malign it. Freedom of speech is no longer about the spread of ideas and a fortress against tyranny, rather it is the tyranny against the gullible public a tyranny where right and wrong have no meaning and the battles are not fought with ideas but with PR campaigns set to Spin their side as an abused minority speaking out against the cruel overlords who have the outrages crass to be upset about people who hate them using them.

The first thing that came to my mind after watching this “Special” (they must mean special like the mentally disabled), was “Please god if this is how specials go, please please never ever let them make an Arrested Development special”. In the end these specials where two hours of nothing just so that David gets to tell Finchie to fuck off and for Tim to get the girl. This whole Christmas Special felt like Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant didn’t like the way the story ended so they decided to put in an alternate ending. It’s too bad that they didn’t even try to hide that behind an interesting episode.

One of the reasons The Office worked was that David’s ego got in the way of his job. So even though certain things might make business sense, he went with whatever helped him feel special. So you saw a guy who was promoted just passed his ability to be productive whose ego finally got him fired. You did not see a bumbling idiot who couldn’t do anything and resorted to throwing out party favors in dingy clubs. The entire episode was just sad, I guess Ricky and Stephen feel that they vindicate David as he actually has a conversation with a woman that doesn’t look like a tub without talking about her breasts or butt and not only that after two seasons of abuse from Finchie he finally tells him to fuck off. Whoop dee do, not only does it not fit with the entire two seasons, in this episode it totally wrong. The entire episode I was thinking how would this guy have ever got a job sorting mail, never mind run an office? Then all of the sudden it’s like WAIT we only have two more minutes left to tell the story of David Brent! Quick get a pretty girl to say she would date him and let him finally grow a pair.

The other part of the story was at least consistently horrible. It felt like I was watching Garden State again (yes again unfortunately the movie came out when I still loved Scrubs), the one thing that I loved about The Office was its authenticity. When they finished season 2 they let Dawn say no, they fired David, Gareth gets to become Big boss Man. I was happy. Now either to sell some more DVDs or to give themselves a happy ending in their own minds, they took that away from me. They switched from a show that was funny and gritty so it could get away with being a little harsh into Friends – the coffee shop. Even Gareth was just odd what in god’s name is he doing here?

Unfortunately the scale is one to five so I can’t give this the negative twenty it deserves so I’ll rate this a“Special” a 1

Ok I understand in the real world (the one where it hasn’t been a week since the end of season two) it has been over a year since the last episode aired and that means you need to reintroduce the characters. This might get new fans to buy the DVD, old fans might be a little fuzzy (whose that fat guy selling office supplies? Oh Yah David Brent! Well that’s alright then). So we need a recap, but a forty five minute one of how everyone gets to the party? Why? That’s just cruel and unusual punishment. What this episode needed was one of those: “Hi I’m Chuck, here are some things you might need to know about me”. I can’t deal with those when I see them, but I can understand why you would need it if this is the first time a show airs in over a year.

Now try to imagine how I felt watching the show. Because of an amazing ending I had finally reconciled my personal issues with the show and thought of it quite fondly. Then came Christmas Special part 1. I was ready for an episode that would be OK. I didn’t think it would qualify for greatness, but I was willing to give them a pass. The show was a major hit and won a lot of awards so I felt they deserved to cash in on that and milk the cow one more time. I thought there would be something like a Christmas rugby game between Wernham Hogg, and David’s new office, or some other lame excuse to get the band together again for a few laughs, wind up Gareth, have David say a racist joke and sing silent night. It would have been a nice little stand alone episode and that’s it thank you all for coming out. Unfortunately, that’s not what I got. Instead I was treated to a depressing show of nothing.

David’s inability to find work just adds to the question of how did he ever end up with that job in the first place and maybe for me it was just a little too similar to my life and the year long search for employment that I went through last year. It was just pitiful to watch Gareth pitying him while Neil picks petty fights with him even though he I beyond down and out. The most disturbing part of the episode for me however, was this: Who thought this up? Austin Powers? Even completely pathetic people don’t think he’s funny.

Maybe worse than having to watch David’s complete waste of a life was the return of Tim & Dawn. SHE SAID NO! That was the end I don’t want to hear them pining for each other like Shia Labeouf and Megan Fox in the sad excuse for a long distance “relationship” in Transformers Two. Funny would be one of them is married maybe even a kid and they awkwardly introduce each other. It is not funny to continue to beat a dead horse. The only real joke of the whole episode was what happens if we really try really hard to pretend all of this was a real documentary, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, but that was the joke of the last two seasons you need a little more than just that.

First of all thank God she said no. I was starting to really enjoy the episode and then Tim and Dawn. It was like the last episode of friends all over again, all you needed was Dawn to get on the airplane. I mean how cliché do you get? For a TV show that prides its self on outside the box she could not say yes. The show started on the anti classic story ending, instead of off to the happily ever after, you get fired. Then out of nowhere, BAM! Take out your trusty sitcom manual and there it is Rule # 356 Article c-3 “When ending a show, the great couple that just never worked out come together and ride off in to the sunset Roll credits” Sub-clause A-1 “it is better if the male overcomes great physical harm.” So when Tim turns his mike back on and says “She said no by the way” I went Oh thank God!

David’s melt down from almost giddy to be on the way out, to sniveling “Pu…pu..puleeez let me stu.. stu…stay”. All of this reminded me of the scrubs episode with the stages of grief. Where the annoying shrink keeps on popping his head in to the frame, “Denial! Bargaining!” David starts out with the denial. First thinking that everyone will miss him and the whole office will implode, than that this is the best thing ever to happen to him. We see him quickly move to anger, going karate kid on his desk. Then it was on to Bargaining, where all of the sudden he isn’t on top of the world anymore and he begs to be able to keep his job. The Depression is quite obvious. Lastly his little soliloquy at the end where he gives his little acceptance speech was a brilliant way to end the series. I know there are Christmas specials, but they don’t count. They are like the Sex in the City movies every fan saw them, but they don’t carry the same weight. So this ending was very apropos, start with David comparing himself to Jesus and end with him rambling in David speak, roll credits. No conventional everyone all together photo shoot ending, just Stop. Roll credits, like No Country for Old Men.

My feelings about this show had very convoluted evolution. More specifically, I went from thinking David Brent was basically a caricature of “The Boss Man” on “reality” TV, too Oh! Well I guess he’s somewhat of a pitiful man-boy who can’t quite fit in; too Awww that’s sad he lost his job, too WOW David Brent is real and his name is Ricky Gervias and man is he an asshole! Maybe he’s also a man-boy who never quite fit in and now he’s got himself his very own TV show.

Let me explain, today was the first day I went back to work after taking off for the holidays. So naturally I had a crapload of work sitting on my desk and naturally instead of actually doing my work I started to browse the internet. Like I do every day I check out The AV Club and I found that Zack Handlen had just done a piece on The Office UK. So convincing myself that I’m not being lazy and actually doing work I read the article. After reading what Zack had to say I was convinced, for a short period of time, that my previous understanding of David, as the boss in the Dilbert comic strip on ego-steroids, was a little flawed and in fact David was actually what happens to that shy kid in your class that wasn’t a nerd or a jock just kind of so so at everything and no one remembers his name at the five year school reunion (Oh Joe right we were in home room right, Trig? and you sat next to me? Really? Oh, oh yah). So I kind of started to feel for the guy, instead of why is he making an ass of himself I started to feel like maybe we should give him a break, he tries so hard come on laugh at his joke just once it’s like charity (and you’ll feed children in Africa).

After this brainwashing I actually sat down to watch the episode and I liked it again! I still take umbrage at the whole pointless Tim and Dawn bit, the episode is about firing David stop confusing me with Tim playing with Dawn’s heart and his feelings for Rachel or is it his understanding of what he’s doing to Dawn that he’s showing with his charity kisses? I don’t know, but quite frankly I couldn’t care less. Tim Hiding all of Gareth’s things while he hops around is enough, leave the character development and story arc and all that mumbo jumbo that critics like to talk about to the real point of the episode, we all know it’s coming, so stick to what works. Even with this side show going on I still loved the episode. My new understanding of David and the perfect platform to watch his antics, culminating in David being fired in a weird chicken suit, it was the perfect tragedy. When he walks in to the office to explain that he’s been fired and the Chicken suit makes him look like the little man-boy he is playing dress up I was sure that somewhere William Shakespeare was smiling.

Unfortunately, for my relationship with David Brent, my search for the true David Brent didn’t end there. I was curious to know what was going on at the filming of the show so I decided to watch some of the extras to see if they could help me out. They couldn’t. I did get to see Ricky or at least what Ricky wanted me to see of the real man behind the mask and I think my original feelings and Zack Handlen’s are both correct. I no longer think of David as a contrived character embodying the boss from hell, but I don’t think Zack’s awkward boy all grown up in to awkward boy-man is right either. I think David Brent is Ricky Gervias, that’s not to say Ricky is a cubicle dwelling nimrod, but he does come off as a prick of the highest order. He’s also a man-boy who might have just been that awkward kid who grew up to believe he was only awkward because no one could understand his genius and now he’s gona show us. I guess he did. He got to make out with Jennifer Garner didn’t he.

When watching this episode I decided to throw the past away and just pretend this was the first time I ever saw The Office. All my preconceived notions of what The Office should be, why I felt It was leaving the “purity of its birth” and all that BS that I was judging it on out the proverbial window. I just sat down and said it’s been a really long day, let me sit down and let these people make me laugh. Well I definitely laughed.

Think of this scene you’re at work, on your way to the bathroom and you see two coworkers kissing all nice and 80’s prom like. Now the girl who’s being kissed is someone that you’re attracted to, but never acted on that. A normal person thinks two things; one this is awkward get a friigin room, two shit I guess she’s not that into me. Not Gareth, he walks right up to them and first talks to Tim like Rachel is not there, “how can you go after a bird that I fancy?!?” really he calls her a BIRD! It doesn’t end there though he turns to Rachel and asks if she thinks he could still rate a hand job! That is funny it’s like an Awkward Five from Scrubs’ The Todd Awesome.

Then David’s motivational speaking gig (I am even willing to forget the fade outs, what fadeouts in a documentary?!?) that was amazing. More amazing because, gun to their head most people who never gave a motivational speaking course would probably go the same rout, your problems are not so bad and pipe in some inspirational Tina Turner. However, David out of his element going in to hyper overcompensating mode earring, tee shirt, and backwards cap trying to motivate business men out to make their first million by telling them to own their problems and remember Tina Turner’s Simply The Best, needless to say funny stuff. I only wish I could be a fly on the wall if my boss was ever in that situation.

Past forgotten this episode gets 4.5

]]>https://ejoselit.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/171/feed/0ejoselitbrent_on_deskhttps://ejoselit.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/159/
https://ejoselit.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/159/#respondWed, 24 Mar 2010 03:06:54 +0000http://ejoselit.wordpress.com/?p=159]]>DISCLAIMER: The Office has lost my love and is now graded like a regular run of the mill TV show.

Season 2 Episode 3 Party

Its Sunday afternoon again so that means me and my daughter are watching The Office whilst my wife is asleep. What I mean by watching The Office is, turning it on, pausing to go look for a pacifier (it seems like I’ve bought hundreds but I can never find them when I want them), turning it on again, pausing to change a dipper, turning it on again, pausing to try to understand why my daughter is crying, turning it on again, etcetera etcetera. perhaps it is because of the disjointed way that I watched this episode that I came out with this impression, The Office seems to have morphed in too two different shows one about Tim love life and one about the battling egos of David and Neil.

The two story arcs are not bad in and of themselves, but they don’t help each other out either. It isn’t like the A story and B story in The Hardy Boys, where Chet’s new boss is also the maniacal killer that Mr. Hardy is tracking and the same person after poor Mrs. Hathaway’s prize petunias. They are more like a bad Family Guy episode where Stewie becomes president of OPEC and Peter becomes a hooker, the stories run at the same time (or was that just a flashback?!?), but they definitely don’t help each other out.

The whole episode really started getting trippy for me towards the end, where they kept switching to the other story with no discernable break. First David is hitting on drunk birthday girl, quite horribly in his “I’m sooooooo superior don’t you see how come your not already in bed with me” kind of way. Then boom Tim caressing his new quazi rebound girl. Don’t blink though, because we’re right back to David making an ass of himself in a public display of his “sexual prowess”. Wait is that a shot of Dawn looking crushed? Is that because of Tim? I guess, but how would we know?

It is funny and made me laugh more than once (thank you Gareth), but still this episode can’t get more then 3.5

The fact that I have not slept for more than three hours consecutively in the past two weeks might be impacting the generally negative opinion that I’ve started having about the office, but I really don’t
think that’s it. I was as awake as I’ve been getting on Sunday afternoons nowadays, I had a whole supper grandee (or however you say humongous in Starbucksies) black tea in me and I had just finished a pretty interesting class on memory formation, when I sat down to watch this episode. I’ll admit that since episode six of season one my Office experience is not what it originally was. Don’t get me wrong the shows are still enormously funny, but so are a million different TV shows, hell I can even get a laugh watching seventh heaven (when I’m feeling extremely depressed), but The Office was more than that. The Office was funny without being a TV show, it was a day in the office exposed and I loved it. Sadly this is no longer the case.

There still are the spoofs mind-numbingly stupid practices of the corporate world but it feels like that was all relegated to background noise. The appraisals are the quintessential example of office stupidity and in classic Office humor David polarizes how these reports are only a means to inflate a supervisor’s already overly inflated ego. I particularly enjoyed Gareth’s mishandling of the party line that all offices put up “these reports are not to see who is doing badly, just to let us know how the company can better serve our employees.” So Gareth’s “to separate the chaff from the wheat” line was actually very entertaining in The Office way.

However, the show seems to have moved away from Mockumentary of a day at the office warts and all, too classic TV sitcom in the framework of an office Mockumentary. For me it was kind of like Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip, at first I thought it was quite possibly the best show ever to air, but then as the show’s ratings slipped all these addled love stories and nonsensical sitcom situations (like sending a fox after a ferret after a snake down a hole under the stage?!?) got added to the show until it became a Frankenstein monster instead of the best show I’d ever seen. What was unique about The Office was there was no melodramatic story line all it was is a day at the office no starting point or end point there was no need for the script writers to get to someplace it was when the day is over turn the lights off and go home. Now there are love interests and love triangles that just feel so scripted you lose the brilliant little lines like Sidney Poitier, in the story the show is now trying to tell.

Ok wife’s feeding the baby so I’m tryin to get this in quick, maybe the baby’ll sleep after so mommy and daddy can actually get something done.

First of all I LOVE the new Tim (same as the old Tim). I thoroughly enjoyed watching him give Dawn the cold shoulder and bossing her around. The only thing that topped it was when Lee catches them dancing. I don’t know what it is, to paraphrase Stephan King maybe it is “we never expect to see our loved ones return every time we see them leave”, but whatever it is there is something spectacularly dreadful about the Tim / Dawn, Ross / Rachel, JD / Eliot relationship that we love to watch over and over and over and over again. It’s like a slow motion car wreck done in pinks and purples, a beautiful disaster.

Aside from that delectable piece of TV drama, this episode explodes on a subject that I’ve wanted to write about from the first episode, but the bits and pieces were just too small for me to write about. Now however, it has taken over the show, David’s amazing racism. It was always there the “you guys like that”s, but when he started the black man’s cock joke I couldn’t stop laughing when the black guy walks over and goes “Oh the one about the black guys cock?” It’s so funny because he genuinely believes there is no problem with the joke now because the token black guy says he doesn’t mind it. Don’t get me wrong I’m with David on this if I was the butt of a joke that insinuated that I have a massive cock well than more power to me, but dude! David’s racism cracked me up every episode, but it was nice to see him get confronted about his racism and his patent David Brent line to close the issue in his melting pot was priceless.

I definitely give the episode a 5

]]>https://ejoselit.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/145/feed/2ejoselitboomracistThe Marketplace Vs. The Universityhttps://ejoselit.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/the-marketplace-vs-the-university/
https://ejoselit.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/the-marketplace-vs-the-university/#respondTue, 23 Mar 2010 03:20:57 +0000http://ejoselit.wordpress.com/?p=136]]>Perhaps the most offensive line of the entire clip was about three seconds long to paraphrase it sounded something like this “They’re just kids they don’t belong in the discussion of the marketplace of ideas”. The justice comes off as a buffoon who sounds something like Max Funaro in this Onion Poll. The funniest thing about the justice’s decision and quote is I agree with it! I do think there is a difference between the freedom of speech that is protected by our constitution and the freedom of expression allowed in a school.

Being a stanchly conservative highly religious Jew, I agree with the sentiment on Chase Harper’s shirt, namely that all homosexual people will burn in Hell. Be that as it may, I don’t approve of his actions. Not because of he might offend someone who sees his shirt, so what? I’m sure if I wore this shirt Chase would be offended (btw this shirt rocks I MUST OWN IT!). That is something that is protected by free speech, pissing people off. However a school falls under a different category, a school needs to be able to create an atmosphere that is conducive to learning. this is hard enough, just competing with the billion and one things on a teenagers mind, whose winning Dancing With the Stars, what his Face book Status is, What his girlfriend thought about his twitter twit, etc. if all personal expression was allowed in a classroom you could never teach. with the same logic substitute the offensive tee with the guy sitting next to you on the train blasting the newest crap that Lill Bow Wow put out through his cell speaker, he might say it is his freedom of speech to express his love for crapy music in public, but try that in a class room and I think we would all agree that it must stop (on a side note I am proposing a law that cell phone music be banned on subways, GET HEADPHONES we don’t want to hear it).

Chase’s tee shirt was a prop that could be used to disrupt a class because of it inflammatory nature. Because of that the school had every right to stop him from wearing the shirt in a school setting. I think the school asked for such an incident by creating a day for all students that was intrinsically offensive to certain students. However, in a school the school has the right to dictate what behaviors are conducive to a learning environment and what does not. That does not mean that stude3nts cannot have ideas that are contrary to the curriculum, or those that are held by the student body or even the faculty. It just means that in school those ideas can only be discussed in a classroom discussion or a similar setting approved by the school. The rest needs to wait for the marketplace.